I love how one absurdity is met directly with another. One poster put it quite nicely when he said, of Kayne and Lynch lying about their reviews, that it's almost as if "life is parodying itself." So the Jeff thing happened, something which nobody has honestly any idea why he was let go, and he's under a legal obligation to not speak of it, except that he's stated it's not because of advertising revenues. Additionally, in his email to Joystiq, he stated that he believes that individuals SHOULD NOT show utter contempt for the video games journalism industry and take it on face value. This would seem to indicate that every reviewer handles their job differently and bias would be pretty easy to spot.

At this point, I'd like to bring up all the things that have annoyed the crap out of me about people's reaction to this:

1. Unlimited New Threads - Everyone, and I almost mean EVERYONE, has created their own thread that's titled something like "OMG Gamespot loves teh $$$" or something when there are CLEARLY POSTED INSTRUCTIONS NOT TO. I mean come on people, these forums are for one use only, for gamers to discuss gaming with other gamers. Contrary to popular belief, they're not so gamers can talk to 1. the game companies, 2. individual reviewers, or 3. either Gamespot or CNET... which leads me to

2. Dear CNET - Posters act like everyone in CNET's head office spends all day trolling GenDisc. I can guarantee them that this is not the case. I would bet that even the senior reviewers of Gamespot spend minimal time on the forums, and this kinda thing would probably make them spend even less time. Seriously, just because you want to voice your opinion doesn't mean you can be a jerk about it and make more work for the people who make it possible for you to even post here in the first place.

3. Instant education sans literacy - Nobody on these forums reads the posts before them. Its horribly frustrating in threads like the million page Jeff thread in OT. One poster was complaining that it was "hard to follow," but I think that's nonsense because NOBODY FOLLOWS IT! I think they're more upset because all their super-informative threads in gendisc keep getting closed and because nobody will read it if it's in the Jeff thread... I got news for you... nobody reads it anyways usually. Also, everyone has become an overnight economist that knows every in and out of CNET's revenue and is able to produce the figures at the drop of a hat. I understand this Jeff thing is frustrating, but come on, there's a way companies handle this kind of thing every time, and it's NEVER any different... you need to wait for them to release an official statement.

And, on that note, two things:

1. Mods = Greatness - You guys have been doing a spectacular job. Honestly, the moderators, for the most part, have shown maximum restraint and have handled this issue with the greatest of tact. They have really shown how to deal with a crisis with class despite the people who are like "See my threads getting locked, thats CNET telling me I'm right omg!" Honestly, I even if a crisis like Jeff happened again, I think I would never think about boycotting the site just because of the amazing way this is being handled by the mods... nice work guys... I wish I could buy you all lunch or something.

2. The real way to stick it to CNET - Cancel your subscription... that speaks louder than posts, emails, etc. If you've done it already, good for you; now please stop announcing it to the world, we know already how much you hate CNET... you don't need to keep "informing" us.

Alright, so yeah, that's my 2 cents about this whole Jeff thing...